Not What the Doctor Ordered: Rationing Medicine to Cut Costs

December 26, 2013

First, it was their healthcare plans.

Next, it was their doctors.

Now, some Americans are quickly discovering that medications, which they depend on daily, are no longer covered at pre-Obamacare levels. “In some cases, coverage of certain prescriptions is non-existent.” This new consequence of Obamacare is causing patients like Keith, a North Carolina resident who suffers from arthritis, to make ends meet… by rationing his much-needed medication.

“I have an employer-sponsored retiree healthcare [plan] and not only have the deductible and copay gone out-of-sight, now they are not covering medicine to the same level they once were did. Celebrex is now on a list of medicines that will cost me $8.00 per day. I can’t afford an additional $240 a month, so I do without.”

Like the shrinking provider networks, the new-but-not-improved formularies are a result of the Affordable Care Act’s mandated benefits noted by Forbes. They sarcastically stated, “You might not be able to keep your medicine, either.”

“Health plans are cheapening their drug formularies – just like they cheapened their networks of doctors. That’s how they’re paying for the benefits that President Obama promised, everything from free contraception and screening tests to a leveling of premiums between older (and typically costlier) beneficiaries, and younger consumers.

But the need to fund these promises will put drug formularies in play for the long run. New medicines will remain off formularies, or make it on after long delays. Patients will find that costlier specialty drugs are simply not covered.

Like a lot other parts of Obamacare, uncertainty around drug costs and coverage is becoming another one of the scheme’s unpleasant surprises.”

Keith explained his situation. “Celebrex is being offered, but it is being offered at a different level – it’s a different tier on the [formulary]. They moved various medications that were popular medications from a lesser expensive tier to a very expensive tier. In other words, they are covering less of the medications that are popularly used.”

The new cost is simply unaffordable for Keith, leaving him with no choice but to limit his arthritis medication and live with the pain.

“It is a difference between taking two pills a day to taking one every other day,” he shared.

This could explain why 42% of Americans say “they will be personally worse off under Obamacare,” while only 16% say “the law will help them,” according to a new CNN/ORC International survey.

“That is what our government is doing to us. I lay this right at the feet of Obamacare, and we don’t know all of it yet, because it hasn’t been totally rolled out… The government is now extending their tentacles into people’s private lives where it was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution. This is another overreach of authority. It can’t go on.”

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First, it was their healthcare plans.
Next, it was their doctors.
Now, some Americans are quickly discovering that medications, which they depend on daily, are no longer covered at pre-Obamacare levels. “In some cases, coverage of certain prescriptions is non-existent.” This new consequence of Obamacare is causing patients like Keith, a North Carolina resident who suffers from arthritis, to make ends meet… by rationing his much-needed medication.
“I have an employer-sponsored r read more >